7 Ways to Make or Break Your Emails

I just returned from my morning mastermind at a local coffee shop – every other week we meet to talk shop and brainstorm about our businesses. And one of my highlights of the day is Kim, our server.

Why? Because Kim really knows how to take care of her customers. She has a fantastic memory. She knows all of our names AND all of our orders. “Julie, do you want your ice tea and omelet today? With cheddar cheese and bacon?”

Kim’s personal attention to me (and my friends) makes us feel special. She makes us feel important (even though we aren’t there every single day)! And I know I leave a bigger tip because of her VIP treatment.

Treat Your Online Community Like VIPs

So are you treating your online community the same way Kim does? Do you try to make them feel special whenever you can?

There are new online tools that can help you do this, and today let’s talk about how you can use them.

Email marketing software has evolved significantly over the years, and here are seven easy ways you can be a “Kim” to your audience.

1. Always collect first names. “{{ subscriber.first_name }}” is one of the sweetest things you like to hear. So make sure that you always collect the first name of your subscribers on your optin forms. Generally the less info you ask for the better, so you don’t need their last name, but always collect the first name and email address. Then use their name at the top of the email when you say hello.

2. Personalize based on email clicks. The newest tools let you track which folks click on a link in your email and then take action based on that click. So, for example, let’s say you offered your course with a special bonus offer in your email. You can track who clicked the offer and didn’t buy, and send them a special email to help nudge them into the purchase. You could say something like, “I noticed you were interested in the XYZ bundle, but you didn’t get to order. Is there a question I can answer for you? Just hit reply to send me your question and I’ll get back to you right away.”

3. Survey and segment your subscribers. Ask a question of your subscriber, and use the information to categorize them. The more you know about your subscribers, the more personalized you can make the messages for them. For example, suppose I taught painting courses and I asked my subscribers, “What paints do you most enjoy using? Oils, Watercolors or Acrylics.” Based upon their answers, I can segment my subscribers into three categories: The Oil Painters, The Watercolor Painters and The Acrylic Painters.

4. Make offers based upon the categories. Once you know more about your subscriber, you can customize your offers to their interest. Just like Kim customized my omelet exactly the way I like it, you can change the wording of your offers based upon what you know about them. So if we continue with the painting example, I could sell the same course but personalize how it is presented.

Let’s suppose I’m selling a course called “Perspective for Painters.” Then in the emails that go to the oil painters I could say, “When painting buildings with oils, your knowledge of perspective will make sure that the buildings look like they belong on the landscape.” The watercolor painters would receive “When painting buildings with watercolors” and the acrylic painters would receive “When painting with acrylics.”

These are just tiny shifts in wording, but sometimes that’s all it takes to make the sale.

5. Welcome your student with an automated welcome sequence. When someone signs up for your course, make sure they automatically receive a welcome message from you. It should welcome them to the course, send them the login information, and explain how to get started and how to ask questions. They should also receive a receipt from you. Then you can follow up in a few days with another tip to make sure they are moving forward to the next step of the course.

6. Sell your course with a 5-Day Email Mini-Course. Take a portion of your course and turn it into a 5-Day Email Mini-Course. Your prospect gets to sample your course, and you get to show up in their inbox for 5 days in a row. At the end include a couple emails with a success story from one of your students, address potential objections and offer them the full course.

7. (Advanced) Trigger your email sequence based upon activity on your website. Some of the newest tools will even help you track your subscribers when they interact with your website. For example, suppose one of your contacts visits a case studies page where you feature one of your students who had amazing success with your course. You can automatically follow up with them to share a special offer for the course they were reading about on your site.

These are just a few of the simple ways you can use marketing automation to sell more courses. As the tools get better and better at personalizing our experience, we can take advantage of ways to help our readers have an even better experience with us – and pretty soon you’ll be the “Kim” of your industry!

Now Take Action…

Do you have an email marketing service you currently use? If so, does it do fancy automation techniques that track your subscribers?

One of my favorites is ConvertKit (renamed to Seva). They are one of my favorite tools because they have an easy way to create fancy automations (and they play nicely with one of my favorite course platforms, Teachable).